Âme de Minuit
by mrs-hayley-elric-24
Summary: “And?” I prompted when he fell silent. “Ed… Edo? Ed?” Panicking, I shook his shoulder. “Edward? Ed? Wake up! Ed! Ed! Nooo!” EdxOC, my first fic. R&R, flames welcome!
1. Chapter 1

**Hi, world of fanfiction dot net!!! My name is Mrs. Hayley Elric, and I'm sooo excited to post my first ever fanfiction on here! :D  
My character is named Misako, but I usually just call her Misa. I hope you like her!! I put a lot of thought into her character and this story, I hope you enjoy it. 3  
And sorry about the summary, I kinda suck at them, haha. ^_^  
Read and enjoy! :)**

**Âme de Minuit  
****Chapter One**  
**By Mrs. Hayley Elric  
Misako's POV**

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"_Mi… sa… ko…" His eyelids fluttered and his aurous orbs searched for a glimpse of my face. _

"_Don't strain yourself," I whispered. A tear rolled down my cheek as I watched him struggle to remain conscious. It was hard to believe it had come to this…. Was I going to be the one to hear Edward's last words? "I'm sorry, Edo-kun," I breathed. "There's… there's nothing else I can do…. This is all my fault… I'm so sorry."_

"_Misa… please… don't blame yourself."_

"_Who am I supposed to blame?" I choked in disbelief. "God? Luck? Fate?" _

_He gave a weak chuckle. "'Fate'… ha!" _

"_What? Don't you believe in fate?"_

_He attempted to sit up, and, failing to do so, lifted my right hand that was clutching his left and brought my knuckles to his lips, closing his eyes and exhaling slowly. "I don't need fate, Misa-chan, I just need your lovely face beside me. And…" He coughed wetly and slumped back into the pillows, closing his eyes again. _

"_And?" I prompted when he fell silent. "Ed… Edo? Ed?" Panicking, I shook his shoulder. "Edward? Ed? Wake up! Ed! Ed! Nooo!"_

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_

**One year earlier…**

The day that changed my life was sometime in mid-April. It was a Tuesday. I remember it was raining.

I awoke that morning to my clock radio playing "Underneath It All" by No Doubt. I really liked the song, so I turned up the volume as I threw the covers off my body (awakening my black, white, and gray calico Neko in the process), shed my ebony satin pajamas, shook out my long flaxen hair, and headed for the bathroom to shower.

I'd had no idea what a 'fateful' day was in store for me that morning, but if I had, I probably would have been more jazzed about going to work at Central HQ, where I was General Misako Tsukino, also known as "Misa Misa," or the Midnight Soul Alchemist. Then again, before that day, I had never believed in idealistic constructs such as 'fate.' If someone had walked up to me that morning and informed me that today was a day that would change my life, I would have laughed in their face.

I just wasn't the type to believe in that stuff.

My 'type' was about to change…

After my shower, I went to the mirror and rubbed away the steam that had collected there in order to stare at myself. My sandy hair looked darker due to the wetness, but when it was dry, people often told me it seemed to take on a red tinge in the sunlight. My amaranthine eyes, rosy lips, and luminous skin all appeared that way without the necessity of makeup—I didn't have any patience for those types of girly frivolities anyway.

However, the one thing that stood out to me every time I looked in the mirror was neither my face nor my hair, but my body—more specifically, my left arm and right leg of automail. Unfeeling, unyielding, unbeautiful symbols of my past… a constant reminder of my mistakes, and how far I still had to come.

I sighed heavily, and turned away from the mirror.

After drying my hair and putting it up in a pair of long blonde braids down my back, I headed into the bedroom again and went to my dresser. A glance over to my bed proved that Neko was going through her morning routine too, stretching out her paws in front of her as far as they would go, and as for the music on my radio, No Doubt was no longer playing, so I turned it off, scratched Neko behind the ears, then got dressed.

Technically, because of my rank, I was supposed to wear the Amestrian military uniform, but I was firmly set against wearing that stuffy thing, so my solution had been to shove the uniform in the back of my closet and have a seamstress craft me an outfit out of the same material as the Amestrian military uniforms were made, but with a few 'adjustments'—the jacket was sleeveless, cropped, and fitted around my bust, and those terrible pants had been replaced with a mini with two rows of decorative gold buttons down the front and some pleats in the back. I wore my stars on my shoulders and my name on my breast like I was supposed to, but I made a game out of accessorizing my 'altered' uniform with fishnets, belts, earrings, shoes, pins, arm warmers… pretty much anything went.

Today's outfit consisted of black lace-up boots with thigh-high fishnet stockings, the skirt and jacket (obviously), a thick black belt that rode low on my hips, and a long-sleeved white cotton shirt that was cut off so that when paired with the cropped jacket, my abdomen (and the gold stud in my bellybutton piercing) was bared for the world to see. I put on my usual gold dangling earrings and a set of gold studs in my cartilage piercing, then pulled on my black gloves just as I was grabbing my ever-useful satchel and heading for the door—those gloves also helped camouflage my automail hand.

Neko followed me out (she usually came to work with me—she was even more reliable than Mary's little lamb). As we entered the elevator to the lobby of my apartment complex, I picked up Neko and held her in anticipation of us heading out to the street.

My apartment wasn't big, wasn't expensive—nor was it in a particularly safe neighborhood. The second most terrifying part of the day for me was leaving my apartment in the mornings and walking these streets to get to work; the most terrifying part was coming home at night. (Not that I couldn't protect myself, if it came to that, but I would have rathered it never came to that.)

I walked briskly, as was my habit, and ignored to the best of my ability the wolf-whistles of some of the seedy-looking men I passed on the street. Juggling my umbrella to keep us both dry, I held Neko close to my chest, and she purred as if to comfort me.

I relaxed visibly when we got out of the rough part of town, and put Neko down to let her walk beside me while I brushed a few grayish-white hairs of hers from my clothes.

Sometimes, if I was running late, I would hail a taxi to Central HQ, but I had time today, so I decided to walk. The rain didn't bother me that much.

Neko and I bypassed most of security since everyone recognized me (I was quite popular in HQ). Most of the security guards were focused on some blond kid who looked to be a little younger than me; he was throwing a temper tantrum from the looks of it. Probably the brat of an officer, looking to visit Daddy in the middle of the day while he was skipping school. Nothing of interest to me, at any rate.

Before I got to the elevator, I was stopped by a woman whom I vaguely recognized: a lower-ranking officer by the name of Morgan, who handed me a note from the higher-ups and bid me good day.

After reading the note, I bypassed checking in at my own offices. I would have done it anyway: my subordinates were always on my case about this report or that authorization, and even when they weren't bugging me about work, they were all insufferably dull and liked to make a sport out of asking me out on dates, all of which I turned down. (That had been a source of guilt for me the first time I'd been asked out by my subordinates—every one of the male ones in turn had done it—but after the first couple times, they had accepted my rejection, realized it wasn't personal, and now made a hobby out of pulling my leg about it.)

Neko and I instead headed for the office of Colonel Roy Mustang, otherwise known to me as "Uncle Roy."

Uncle Roy was, as far as I was currently aware, my only surviving family member. I was the daughter of his older sister, who had been separated from him when they were kids in the foster care system. My real mom had been way too young when she had me, so she'd abandoned me at an orphanage. My adoptive parents hadn't told me I was adopted until I was nine, and that was only after Mom (aka my adopted mother) died of an illness. Even then, my 'father' hadn't told me I was adopted until three years after her death, and the only reason he really told me I was adopted was to justify…

Ah, but I didn't like thinking about _that incident._

After Dad… er, went where we all are headed, I was put in the temporary foster care of an old woman who no more knew how to take care of a child than a dead squirrel. Two weeks later, there was a call and I found out that I actually _did_ have living biological family left, and furthermore, that he'd agreed to take me in. That was Uncle Roy, of course.

He was young, only 24 at the time, and fresh from the horrors of Ishbal, but for some reason he still wanted to keep me. I was eternally grateful to him for that kindness, however, that hadn't stopped me from running away from him when I was 13, after I'd gotten my State Alchemist's license, much to his vexation.

Sometimes I caught a shadow of emotion on his face, a dark look somewhere between shame and concern, whenever I did or said something that reminded him of what I had done—talking about my apartment for example, or mentioning the past.

He was my only family left in the world, and I did feel bad for leaving him hanging... but it was too late for that now. I wasn't going to go back to living on someone else's paycheck under someone else's roof. Anyway, I wasn't in the habit of reneging, especially on a decision that big. What's done is done.

When I entered my uncle's office, I noticed immediately that his subordinates were behaving oddly. Havoc was leaning casually against his desk, lighting up a cigarette; Fuery had his head propped in his hands and was staring down the dilapidated radio; Breda was leaning back in his chair, feet on the desk; and Falman was looking at a piece of paper, but his eyes weren't moving.

"Hello," I said to draw attention to myself as I stared at them, wondering why nobody was doing any work.

Falman saluted vaguely without taking his eyes from the paper he was not reading. "General."

Fuery waved. "Hi, Misa-san! Looking stunning as always! And konnichiwa, Neko-chan!"

Havoc took a drag and nodded at me, smirking slightly around the cig, and Breda seemed to be asleep.

"Where's Hawkeye-chuui?" I asked suspiciously.

"Bathroom," said Falman. "Therefore, we're on break."

"Sneaky," I chided gently.

"So what brings you here, Jailbait-chan?" Havoc asked.

Fuery sniggered. "I can't believe you just called her that to her face. The Colonel would fry you if he heard!"

"Well, she _is_ jailbait, just _look_ at her!"

I felt my face heating up. "Uh, I'll just pass right on through, if it's all right with all of you…" I mumbled as I headed for the door on the opposite side of the room.

Uncle Roy jumped when I walked in, nearly choking on his coffee. "Oh my God!" he coughed. "You scared me for a second, Midnight; thought you were Hawkeye!"

"Uh, sorry?" I closed the door behind Neko. "I got a note this morning that I was to report to your office, oji-san. What's that about?"

"I've got a mission for you," he told me.

"Sweet. I'm sick of listening to Lt. Sauder and Sgt. Gray rambling about paperwork and deadlines, anyway. "

"Believe me," he said darkly, "you're not the only one having that problem."

I flopped onto his rather nice couch, the one that made me green with envy whenever I looked at the sparse set of scratchy blue chairs that furnished my own office. "So where is the military sending me this time?"

"Can't tell you yet."

"Why not?"

"Because you're not going alone on this one," he explained.

"I see. So right now we're…"

"Waiting for your partner to arrive, yes. He should be here soon. I must warn you, Misa-chan, he hates me. A lot. So when he comes in, he'll come in like—"

As if on cue, the door banged open with a louder crash than I'd previously thought possible of a door, and an irate blond boy in a red coat stomped to Uncle's desk and slammed his fists down on it.

"This had better be more important to you than your balls are, Colonel Shitface, and in case you were wondering, I know an excellent trick for making human flesh shrivel up and fall off, and I've been DYING for a chance to test it."

"Nice to see you too, Fullmetal. You're as short as ever, I see." He looked at me. "Midnight Soul, meet the Fullmetal Alchemist."

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**The songs featured for this chapter are "No Doubt: Underneath It All" and "Paramore: Miracle." I absolutely LOVE Paramore!! 3  
Please leave a review, even if you didn't like it that much!!! But I'm new here, so please try not to be too mean!!!  
I'm not going to post the next chapter until I get five reviews, so if you like it and want the next chapter, please leave a review FAST!  
Peace!  
-mrs-hayley-elric-24**


	2. Chapter 2

**This chapter's songs are ****Paramore: Decode and**** Linkin Park: New Divide. Even though I didn't get the five reviews I said I wanted, I'm updating anyway! I just couldn't wait any longer. You all are lucky I'm being nice!**

**Review responses:**

**Red. Wolf. Of. Fire—This fanfic isn't supposed to be after the movie. That's why Mustang isn't General, he's still Colonel! Also, the extra O's are for making the sound louder. "NOOOO!" is more emotional and stuff than just plain "NO!" right?**

**Xblackxtearsxofxlovexandxkatex—Epic username! And thanks for the nice, long review! It made me happy. I don't really know what you meant by Paramore and No Doubt not being in existence… they exist! And as for Ed-kun not liking Misa-chan's clothes, I'm pretty sure this chapter will assuage any misgivings you have about how he feels, haha!**

**GoddessPhoenix3173—Thanks for reviewing!**

**shinespire—Thanks for reviewing! I'm glad you think my plot is original!**

**And now, on with the show!**

**Âme de Minuit**

**Chapter Two**

**Edward's POV**

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"Midnight Soul, meet the Fullmetal Alchemist."

"Huh?" I said stupidly, following Shitface's gaze to a smokin' hot blonde about my age sitting on the couch, softly murmuring to a frightened gray cat in her arms. I hadn't noticed her when I'd stormed in, but once I looked, I couldn't fathom how I'd missed her. Let's just put it this way: To describe this girl as "smokin' hot" would be like describing the permafrosted wasteland that was northern Drachma as "pretty chilly."

"Shh. It's okay, Neko," she whispered. Neko must've been the cat's name; not that I cared. I was more interested in listening to her musical voice. I'd never heard anything like it. She had the voice of the solo soprano in a choir of angels.

"Good God, Fullmetal," said Shitface, interrupting thoughts that I probably shouldn't have been thinking in the first place. "Close your mouth; you're practically drooling."

"Wha—? Oh, shut up, _taisa-yarou_! Nobody cares what you think anyway." I forced myself to take my eyes off the girl and look at Shitface again. The sight of his ugly mug was enough to remind me why I was angry—mostly because of the fact of his existence, but that was neither here nor there. "I find it hard to believe you called me all the way down to Central to introduce me to Little Miss Look-At-Me-And-My-Adorable-Kitty-Aren't-We-So-Kawaii. Tell me why I'm here—so I can leave."

Shitface leaned back in his chair, looking for all the world like he needed a face-full of my metal fist. "Kind of a lengthy epithet, but I daresay my niece could get used to it eventually."

His _niece_. Well, fuck.

"Ano, oji-san," said the girl, standing up. (Somebody needed to get around to telling me her name.) "Is this the person you were telling me about?"

"Wait, you were telling her about me? Why?"

Shitface ignored me. "Yes, this is he."

She looked indecisive for a moment, then stepped forward and held out her hand. "I'm Misako. But you can call me Misa."

I didn't shake—not because I wanted to be purposely rude, but because I didn't want to shake with my _right_ hand and give away my… unfortunate condition. "Ed," I grunted at her, arms crossed.

Looking confused and injured, she let her hand fall limply to her side.

His niece. His damn _niece_. No fair.

I turned back to Shitface. "Answers. Provide them."

"I've got a mission for you."

I had deduced as much, Captain Obvious. (Or rather, Colonel Obvious.) "Get to the point."

He gave a little cough. "A mission for _both_ of you."

I looked at Misako, then at Shitface. "You're joking."

"Nope."

"No shit."

"Cross my heart."

I stared him down for a moment, looking for a sign that he was pulling my leg, but Shitface's shit face was as somber as death. "No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?" Shitface asked with that cocky grin plastered from ear to ear.

"I mean I'm not doing it," I growled.

"Take that up with the Führer if you want, Fullmetal, but I doubt he'll give you a reprieve. In a few hours, you and Misa will be on a train to…" He consulted the contents of a folder on his desk. "Bueáire."

Misako did a double take. "The capital of Aerugo?" **(A/N: Taken with permission from LadyWordsmith, an FF user—**_**this city name is just fanon, not Arakawa-sensei's invention.**_** LadyWordsmith-san told me to say that.)**

"What, is the Führer trying to send a couple of teenagers to singlehandedly infiltrate a foreign government?" I snorted at the idea.

"Something like that," said Shitface, offhand. "I don't know."

Misako cocked her head at him. "Didn't you read the assignment, oji-san?"

His niece, I reminded myself again. There was no way this girl didn't know how her body language looked; it was physically impossible for someone to be this cute by accident.

"Heavens no," Shitface responded. "I don't even read my own paperwork. What makes you think I would read yours?"

"Good point," Misako conceded. "Then if it's all right with you, can I see that folder and actually read what's inside?"

Shitface tossed it at her and she caught it reflexively, not even jarring that little stupid cat when she moved. Her grace was merely surprising; her body was… mesmerizing. "Arigato, Uncle," she said. Then, "Come on, Fullmetal-kun, we're going." Like it was nothing.

"Excuse me?" I snapped. "One, I'm not a _-kun_. You may refer to me as Fullmetal-_sama_ if you like. And two, who says you get to tell me where to walk? I decide where I go. Only me." Unfortunately, despite my blustering, I'd made the mistake of ranting about this while following her out of Shitface's office and into the hall.

"I have to go home and pack," she told me. "Don't you also have things to get?"

"No. I have a suitcase. See? It is in my hand." I held it up. "It contains… stuff. The stuff inside is useful… stuff. I use it for… stuff-related things."

"I see," she said with a slightly amused tone. "Well, I have to go home, so I guess you'll have to follow me."

"Who says I have to follow you? _I'm_ going home."

"And ignoring the assignment?" she countered.

"Hell yeah." _So take that, bitch,_ I added in my head. "I don't need a partner."

"Well, you got one, so try to deal," she said unsympathetically. "It's not like you're the only one who is affected by this. I mean, poor Neko! She hates trains! Even a few minutes on one gets her all flustered. How will she survive the hours and hours it will take to get us to Bueáire?"

"The cat's not coming," I said firmly. "Pets do not belong on military missions."

"I beg to differ."

An hour and a half later, I was sitting on a southbound train next to a cat carrier complete with the "all flustered" cat. It looked the same flustered as it did non-flustered, so I was taking Misako's word for it.

"Fullmetal-kun?"

"No," I said harshly, cutting off any form of conversation she was trying to create.

"Ed-kun?"

I refused to respond.

"How about I call you Edo-kun? It's cute."

"Yeah, real kawaii. It's better than tapeworms. Leprosy. Train derailments. Unwanted pregnancies. _Jazz_."

"Look, I know we got off to a bad start, but I think, for the sake of the mission—"

"—You should shut your trap? Good call, Midnight. I was about to suggest the very same thing. You're psychic. You should put on big earrings and bangles and fluffy clothes and tell fortunes from an old carriage that smells like goats."

"I could never do that job."

"Mm?" I grunted questioningly, not interested enough for a real response.

"Well, I can't do that belly-dancing thing," she deadpanned. "I've tried, but it just looks like I'm trying to give an invisible person a lap dance."

"Belly dancing, lap dancing, what's the difference when you get right down to it? As long as everybody gets paid."

"True," she admitted after a moment's contemplation.

For a few minutes, Misako gave me blessed silence, which I filled with my new mental mantra: "his niece, his niece, his niece, his niece, his niece…"

"Do you really dislike me already?" she asked in a soft voice, breaking me out of my trance. I realized that I had been staring again, but this time I had forgotten to make my expression not look irritated (the default position of my face) which meant she probably thought I was glaring at her. "What did I do?" she asked, her voice rising in pitch like she was fighting tears (and failing epically, judging by the watery diamonds swimming in her argentate eyes). "Have I done something wrong?"

What is it with women and crying? "No, no, no, no, no, don't do that!" I stuttered.

"I… uh… just… um…" she mumbled, covering her face with her hands. "Gomenasai, Edo-kun."

From a piece of my seat arm that was already splintered, I transmuted a piece about the size and shape of a grain of rice, then flicked it at her. She snapped out of the dark mood long enough to flail around and try to figure out where it had landed. I smirked and watched her comb her fingers through her dirty-blonde hair, trying to find it.

"What was that piece of thing?" she asked, looking at me through her entrancing cyaneous orbs, shimmering with yet-unshed tears.

"Just a distraction," I said with a smirk. "It worked."

"No, I mean, didn't you just transmute it? I saw the light, but not the circle…" At this, she seemed to enter a speculative trance, her forehead creasing.

"I don't need a circle to transmute," I bragged.

Misako gasped and leaned forward. "Really?"

_Yesss!_ I internally celebrated. Finally, something that made me look less like a jerk and more like somebody talented and smart, whom she might want to f-…uh, never mind. "Yeah," I said nonchalantly.

"So you've seen that thing too?"

"Wha—huh?" Scratch that. I was still stuck on 'jerk.' "You… you… _what_?"

"You committed the taboo too, didn't you?" Her voice and face were full of an almost childlike fascination.

I narrowed my eyes. Nobody had ever caught on that quick, and never without seeing my automail. "What do you know?"

I could practically see the cogs in her head turning in the short silence wherein I stared down at her suspiciously. Then she leaned back in her seat and bent down to unlace the black combat boot on her right foot.

"What are you doing?"

She ignored me, the shoe thunked on the floor of our train's compartment, and she reached under her miniskirt and grabbed the elastic of her thigh-high fishnet stockings. I watched, nearly drooling, as she pulled the stocking down her leg, revealing pale, smooth skin inch by inch.

"What are you d-…?" I trailed off as she pulled the stocking down further and I realized what she was showing me. "Automail?" I whispered. "So I'm not the only one…"

"My right leg and left arm," she replied, staring at her right foot and wriggling the toes. "You have automail too, don't you? Your hand. You wouldn't shake my hand."

"Good guess." I pulled my right glove off and waved with my automail hand, but I didn't roll up my sleeve or point out my leg. She didn't need to know exactly how much of me was metal.

"I thought so," she said smugly. "Who did you try to transmute?"

"Uh…" There wasn't exactly a precedent for this type of conversation. I didn't know whether to tell her everything or keep my business to myself.

Misako leaned in and captured my gaze with those entrancing cerulean irises. The color was so shocking, I felt as if I couldn't look away. Her sandy hair fell forward over her shoulders. "It's okay," she said softly. Her breath—or maybe it was her hair; I couldn't tell—smelled like apple blossoms. "You can tell me. You don't have to be unsure around me. I'm very trustworthy."

I quickly realized I had forgotten why I was hiding this information in the first place, and blurted, "My mother. She was sick. I tried to bring her back from the dead."

Misako tilted her head. "Why?"

Too personal. "Because she was my mom. She was all I had." Wait! Why had I said that? I didn't want to tell her that!

"Where was your father in all this? Why didn't he prevent you from performing the transmutation?" She gasped. "He didn't _aid_ you, did he?"

"He wasn't there. The asshole walked out when I was little."

"So you were all alone? How sad."

"I wasn't alone. I had Al." … Was this girl performing some kind of… voodoo on me or something?

"Who's Al? A friend? A neighbor?"

"My brother." Shut up, shut _up!_ Why was I still talking? I couldn't stop!

"I didn't know you had a brother," she commented, shifting her weight so she had better balance on the moving train. Somehow, she never had to take her eyes off me to do it. Was she even blinking? "Where is he now, your brother?"

She must have noticed something in the way I reacted—my breath halted; I pressed myself further into the seat (away from her), and my jaw tightened.

"A sore spot?" she guessed.

"And what about you, Misako?" I asked to push the conversation's focus off myself.

"Misa," she corrected. "Nobody calls me Misako."

"Who did you transmute, 'Misa'?"

She leaned away and settled back into her own seat. When she stared out the window, her eyes seemed to lighten in hue to a soft periwinkle.

"Sore spot?" The fact that I had to lay my past bare for her but she wasn't paying me the same courtesy irritated me.

She ignored me and reached for the satchel on the seat beside her, pulling out a red iPod Nano and sticking an earbud in one ear. I heard Linkin Park: New Divide begin to play through the bud she'd left hanging.

I shot my best angry face at her for a few moments, but she didn't speak until I had all but given up on getting a response.

"It was my father. He was… ah, murdered. By someone."

"That _is_ generally how murders get accomplished." She didn't return my smile, and it quickly faded. "What about your old lady?"

Misako's eyes flashed an angry carmine. She coughed a little, then she fixed her gaze on the window resolutely. "I don't usually tell people this much." By her tone, she was really saying, "Don't push your luck."

I frowned, stared at her a few more minutes, then decided the well of information was dry and turned away to glower at the window. I wasn't pleased. It had been only a couple of hours since I'd met the girl, but already she was driving me crazy—in both senses of the word.

And what did she have to hide, anyway?

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**I'm so glad to finally update this fic! I hope you people didnt think I'd quit on ya?**

**Misa-chan's history is a mystery—hey, that rhymed! Will Ed break through the emotional defenses of this unpredictable girl? Or will her mysterious past always remain just that—an enigma? You won't find out unless I see five reviews in my inbox! Get to clicking my green button already!!**

**Peace!**

**—mrs-hayley-elric-24**


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